ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s foreign office on Thursday criticized a controversial citizenship law introduced by the Indian administration to protect religious minorities in neighboring Muslim countries, saying it differentiated among people on the basis of their faith.
The Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) was originally passed in 2019 to allow non-Muslim people from Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan to seek Indian citizenship to protect them against persecution.
The law was followed by deadly protests amid anti-immigrant sentiments. It was also described as exclusionary by critics within the country who said it violated the secular principles enshrined in the Indian constitution.
“The regulation and laws are premised on a false assumption that minorities are being persecuted in Muslim countries of the region and to provide India a façade of being a safe haven for them,” Pakistan’s state-owned Radio Pakistan quoted foreign office spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch as saying during her weekly media briefing.
She maintained the rising wave of Hindutva, a 20th century ideology seeking to establish the hegemony of the Hindu way of life in India, under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) government had led to political, economic and social victimization of Muslims and other minorities.
Baloch recalled the international community had taken notice of these developments only a few days ago, asking New Delhi to take corrective actions to protect human rights and prevent attacks against minorities in the lead-up to India’s national elections.
Rights activists have also noted the Indian citizenship law does not cover groups fleeing persecution in non-Muslim majority states like the Tamil refugees from Sri Lanka.
It also fails to offer protection to Rohingya Muslims from neighboring state of Myanmar.
Additionally, there are concerns it can be used in tandem with a proposed national register of citizens to persecute the country’s 200 million Muslims.
